Chapter Text
Neito couldn’t sleep.
Well. That shouldn’t come off as much as a surprise, considering his late night activities, but for once, he was actually trying to sleep. A glance at the clock showed that the time was still around 2 AM. If Neito was to log into nightcord now, he bet that all of his friends were still online, working on their next song.
Thing is, Neito said on the server that he won’t be logging in tonight, partly because he was exhausted, partly because he didn’t want to risk it, with his parents being here.
Though the habit of practically not sleeping almost every night could not be extinguished easily, and Neito grumbled before jumping out of bed and grabbing his drawing tablet.
Turning on his computer quickly, he pulled up the art program, and opened a file. It wouldn’t hurt to work a bit more on the thumbnail for their MV right?
Neito tapped his finger against his desk repeatedly, frustration starting to grow inside of him. The draft looked fine- almost perfect, even! But now that he started to get to lineart, it looked all wrong. Coloring it just made it worse. No matter what color palette he tried it still doesn’t fit. It looked all weird.
As he pushed on and continued the coloring, it just kept getting worse. No matter what, the colors were all off, the lineart was messy, the perspective was weird- it was like Neito suddenly forgot how to draw!
Why can’t he make it work?!
He slammed his pen tablet down onto his desk, letting out a breath.
Someone was knocking on the door.
His heart stopped, for a moment. The knocking continued. Once. Twice. A jingle of keys. Neito doesn’t even need to turn around to know that his mother has just broken into his room with the spare keys he knew she had, that she kept ‘just in case of emergencies’.
“Neito,” The stern voice of his mother made Neito took a breath and turned his swivel chair around,
“Mother,” He simply greeted.
“I thought you were sleeping with the light on- what are you doing up this late?” She asked with a soft smile. Neito knew better.
“Just drawing. Nothing new,” He shrugged.
“Honey,” His mother put a hand up her cheek, looking worried. “How many times have I told you? Stop with all those useless art nonsense,”
Neito stayed quiet and still as his mother went on a spiel. “Honestly, you want to be a hero, right? Why not just drop all these…” She gestured to his whole room, eyes squinting as she looked disapprovingly at his art supplies that were scattered around. “...and focus on getting in 1-A and becoming a real hero?”
That’s another thing. His mother was insistent that 1-A was the superior class (Neito tried to defend his classmates when she insulted Kuroiro and Shishida. He was locked up in his room with no food for the rest of the night) and transferred out of 1-B to 1-A. Neito doesn’t want to though- he loves his class, he loves 1-B.
“...It’s not like they’re useful for your career- are you even listening?” Somewhere along the way Neito tuned out his mother and was only tuning back in. His mother sighed. “You know you won’t get anywhere with- with those things you called art,”
“They don’t even look like professional, beautiful paintings, Neito! They’re just straight up mediocre, borderline terrible,” She spat out her words, and Neito would be lying if he said he wasn’t hurt by this. He stayed quiet though, and his face was carefully blank.
His mother pinched the bridge of her nose. “This is why you will never be good enough, Neito,” She finally said, before turning around, not bothering to close the door. Neito got up and shut the door, locking it twice, before walking back and promptly collapsed back into his chair, no longer in the mood to continue drawing.
Neito sighed. “Never good enough, huh…” He glanced back at his unfinished drawing, before deleting the draft never to be seen again. He’ll probably regret it later, but he could always just draw a new one.
After all, his art was mediocre and terrible. How hard would it be to make another one?
He scrolled a bit through his art folder, and a file caught his eye. Huh. He’s been meaning to post this one to his ‘Neinan’ account, but hasn’t gotten around to doing it. Quickly opening his social media on his computer, he uploaded the artwork and didn’t bother much to tag it properly, before posting it.
Just a few minutes in, notifications were already going in. Some were positive, praising comments that brang a small smile on Neito’s face, but others…were rather filled with unsavory comments and words.
Night-keys at 25:00 wasn’t even that popular yet, but with the amount of hate he was getting just for posting an unrelated art to NK25 as Neinan, he might as well call them the most famous music group of them all.
He let out a wet laugh, and belatedly realised he was crying.
“Disappearing…” Neito hummed to himself. “It would be nice, just to disappear forever,”
“Hey, Neinan uploaded a new illustration last night!” Neito glanced up from his phone. Tsunotori was showing her phone screen to a mildly-interested Tokage. The green haired girl clicked her tongue, leaning back against her chair after looking at whatever picture Tsunotori was showing her.
“His drawing is good, but,” Tokage took another look at the picture, before shrugging. “I don’t know. ‘S not anything special I think,”
Not anything special?
Comments like those were nothing new to Neito- he has gotten lots of it in his career as an artist. He was used to it (no he wasn’t. Even if they were only words written on the screen, Neito never got used to it). But hearing those words said by a classmate of his? By his own friend? Even if she doesn’t know she was talking about him? Frankly, it still hurts.
“Right?” Komori suddenly spoke up, approaching the two girls. “His illustrations lately just seemed-” She gestured around, trying to find the right word. “Mediocre?”
Oh.
All Neito could feel was the awful throbbing pain in his heart- his mother was right after all.
“It’s still a really good drawing though!” Tsunotori said, before frowning slightly. “Although, if he kept drawing like this, I don’t think NK25 would get more popular anytime soon…”
His breathing picked up. There were ringing in his ears. If Neito’s assumption was right, then Tsunotori was showing Tokage the illustration he uploaded last night. Which was made a month or two back, and logically it would be different from his drawings now. But still, Neito remembered how he was so excited about the draft concept, sketching and colouring everything. And it took him a week and more to finish it, with how detailed he wanted it to be. But then he uploaded it, and everyone hated it.
“Monoma?” Kendou was crossing her arms, head tilted. “Are you okay?”
Neito looked up at her, before smiling easily. “I’m fine! What makes you think otherwise?”
Kendou frowned, clearly not buying it, but only sighed in response. “Right, well, have you done the homework Kan-sensei gave us yesterday?”
Neito grinned. “Nope!” It completely slipped his mind, with how busy he was with his late night activities and his parents coming back home.
“Aw man! I was about to ask you if I could copy yours!” Tetsutetsu deflated from where he was standing beside Neito’s desk. Kendou shook her head.
“Honestly, it’s either you already did it a week before the deadline, or you haven’t done it at all,” With a heavy sigh, Kendou pulled out her already done homework sheet and shoved it towards Neito and Tetsutetsu.
“Thanks, Kendou!” Neito’s grin widened as he pulled out his still blank homework sheet, quickly copying down the answers while Tetsutetsu scrambled to his desk to get his own.
Kendou clicked her tongue. “You better finish copying it all in five minutes,” She turned around and pulled out her phone, busying herself with it while Tetsutetsu scrambled back with a beaming “Thanks!” at Kendou.
The rest of the day went by, with Neito only half-focusing in class and busying his hands with doodling in the margins of his notes. At one point he even came up with a new concept sketch for his band’s new album cover. He’ll have to ask M about it later at night.
Speaking about M…. Neito rested his chin on his hand, his other hand still busy with the sketch on a page of his math notebook. I still can’t wrap around the fact that my bandmates go to the same school as me…
Laughable, isn’t it? Midoriya, the resident sunshine and one of the top students from class 1-A, the optimist and always cheering on his friends, the picture perfect of a hero in training- is M, the quiet song composer who chuckled softly when Neito and Neko got into an argument. The composer who could make songs so warm and soft it would be able to hug your heart, yet could also make songs so raw and emotional it’s practically gut-wrenching. M, who saw his flaws and pain, and still smiled kindly at him, offering Neito his hand.
Neito’s hand stopped drawing. It was a sketch of the SEKAI, the world where Neito somehow felt more at home even if it was devoid of life. Miku stood at the centre on the circular stage, expression blank as ever. Leaning against the stage was Neko- Shinsou, crossing his arms and eyes closed, relaxed. Sitting cross-legged on the ground beside him was Me- Hatsume, also leaning back and looking as relaxed as they could be. And beside Miku, sitting on the edge of the stage, legs dangling a bit and kind eyes looking up at Miku, was…Midoriya.
Hah. Neito would never get used to this.